Caribbean Books

Filipino Heroes during the American Occupation of the Philippines

If you like adventure,suspense and heart warming stories this book is just right for you.It is a classic written by L. Frank Baulm. If you haven't heard of the Wizard of oz I am sure your first encounters you will think you are in the book and you wont stop reading it until you are finished.

Ancestors is a "must' read for scholars and critics of Caribbean literature and poetry. Brathwaite (re)invents an invention - a technique that must be recognized as his signature. He is clearly "the" unique voice in the Anglophone Caribbean Literary Canon. My book, The Critical Response to Kamau Brathwaite, which will be published by Greenwood Press in 2003, will further demonstrate his artistry from the 1960s to the present.

Before starting this review, I need to acknowledge that I am currently working on a project with Peter Siegel, and that my employer also employs Karen Anderson-Córdova on occasion.

I purchased Ancient Borinquen, in part, to catch up on the literature of Puerto Rican archaeology. I was not disappointed. The editor, Peter Siegel, has done an excellent job of compiling papers that capture the breadth and diversity of archaeological research on the island. Ancient Borinquen is current, and its list of contributors includes many of the leading lights of Caribbean research. The volume provides an excellent overview of new approaches and new discoveries in Puerto Rican archaeology. It is not designed as a stand-alone text on the subject, but certainly should be included on the reading list of upperclassmen and graduate students.

The volume includes ten sections, plus a preface. Reniel Rodríguez Ramos begins with an interesting study of the Saladoid to Ostionoid transition. Unlike most studies of these manifestations, Rodríguez Ramos examines the change in terms of lithic technology rather than ceramic modes. The assemblage is from the Paso del Indio site, the subject of an important but as-yet-unreported, data recovery excavation.

In Section 2, Jeff Walker presents an overview of the Paso del Indio excavations. Because of a variety of fiscal, political, and personnel issues, it is unlikely that a full study will be available in the near future. His progress report on this complex, multi-component site will be the major source of information on this site for several years. Walker does an admirable job of condensing the extensive information and highlighting the most important points.

The contribution by Peter Siegel, John Jones, Deborah Pearsall, and Daniel Wagner is a strong example of the maturation of archaeology on the island. The authors utilize a comibination of chronological, settlement, geoarchaeological, and microbotanical data to examine the relationship of environment and settlement in the Maisabel vicinity.

Two leaders in Caribbean subsistence studies - Susan deFrance and Lee Newsom - provide a thorough overview of paleoethnobotanical research in Puerto Rico. Many of their primary data are contained in often hard to obtain CRM reports, and this synthesis will be helpful to area researchers.

In Section 5, Anne Stokes examines subsistence change through time from another perspective, stable isotope signatures of human bone. Using samples from Maisabel and Paso del Indio, Stokes documents significant differences in the signatures from the late Saladoid and mid-Ostionoid periods.

The contribution from Torres reports on his ongoing dissertation research into pre-Hispanic settlement in south-central Puerto Rico. He argues that archaeologists should be addressing communities rather than individual sites, to better understand regional settlement-subsistence systems. Torres correctly argues that the role of the Tibes Ceremonial Center cannot be fully understood until we know the relationship of Tibes with the surrounding communities. His broader perspective complements the detailed, site-specific work of Curet and others at Tibes.

After reading Jose Oliver's work on the roles of cemis (Section 7) and Peter Roe's excellent analysis of Puerto Rican rock art (Section 8), I felt I was finally starting to appreciate the complexity of Taino and pre-Taino ritual. Oliver's ongoing work in the Caguana region epitomizes one theme of this volume: it is time to shift focus from single sites and begin to consider regional patterns of adaptation. Likewise, Roe has recognized that sufficient data are at hand to begin addressing changes through time in iconography of rock art, and to relate those changes to broader cultural shifts.

Karen Anderson-Córdova extends the temporal range of this volume by addressing the sudden and violent impact of Spanish settlement on the Taino population of Puerto Rico. Anderson-Córdova addresses key sources in reconstructing the rapid decline in Taino population. Although some modern scholars and Taino descendants may argue with her statement that "the Taínos have been extinct for at least five centuries," Anderson-Córdova is correct in noting the rapid loss of a distinct Taino culture in the face of the European onslaught. She is also right in noting that almost no archaeology has been conducted at contact-period Taino sites.

Peter Siegel completes the volume with a summary chapter. Although he addresses each of the contributions, his section also defines future avenues of research, and is well worth the read.

Overall, Ancient Borinquen serves notice that Puerto Rican archaeology continues to be dynamic, interesting, and challenging. As a discipline, Puerto Rican archaeology has moved beyond the excellent baseline work provided by Ricardo Alegría and Irving Rouse, and the future is full of promise. To see where Puerto Rican archaeology stands in 2006, the student or professional archaeologist need look no further than Ancient Borinquen. I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

Written by a professor of anthropology at Texas State University San Marcos, The Ancient Maya of the Belize Valley: Half a Century of Archaeological Research carefully reviews the abundances of research and discoveries of ancient Maya settlements, striving to collect and integrate information gathered since the publications of Gordon Willey's classic analysis decades ago. Carefully edited and intended to serve as an interim publication pointing the way to long-term production of final site reports, The Ancient Maya of the Belize Valley explores the land, the evidence, and the theories that can be drawn in meticulous detail, and points the way to future discoveries and reinterpretations of commonly held beliefs concerning long-ago civilizations. An outstanding contribution to archaeological reference and study.

as i am archaeologist, this is a good book to have a ancient cultural, ecological, archaeological backgrounf about mesoamerican civilization. it is really very gooooooooooooooood ...

Angel Cuadra's text offers a first hand account of the Castro regime's squashing of independent artists and forcing Cuban art and culture into the narrow confines of Castroite ideology.

Baquero's memory of his native Cuba which he left in 1959 after Castro came to power surfaces in his poems with a continual poignancy which is like melancholy and also with recurring mention of death which is like a mood. This makes for pure sensation, sensuality, in the poems--no tales, spare situation when there is any at all, no characterization, few lessons, not the formality of anger or regret, or political stance, or idea of return. The poet's loss is absolute and inconsolable, except for the movement of language in the poems. Baquero (d. 1997) wrote essays and journalism too. This is one of his eight volumes of poems. The translators, co-translators of Lorca's "Poet in New York," have an exceptional affinity with the Spanish language and Baquero's moody poems.

This book is admirable and exemplary. It follows the fundamental lines we have to follow if we want to integrate all ethnic populations, understood as different in origins from the majority group, and all minority groups in any society. It is to propose them a project in which they will find their motivations. Motivation is the basic element that can dynamize such young people. The first motivation is to assume their past in a critical way, not to reject it, not to feel guilty about it but to understand the role it played in their past as a blocking element, or a restrictive element, or an inspiring element, and turn it into a pure inspiration for the future. Since these young people have been what they have been, they are going to be what their past is going to create and inspire in their future. It is when they state that continuity that they can change it, not reject it, not break it, but continue developing it in a more positive and valorized way. The second dimension is that they are responsible for their future and their past is no excuse for not assuming that responsibility. Let bygones be bygones and the best way to do so is to develop a project in which all students can partake and learn as well as teach. It is important the students become the actors of their own personal learning and the actors, hence the teachers, of their school mates' and class mates' learning. The gathering and acquiring and assimilating of knowledge by everyone in the class and school is the responsibility of everyone, every student and every teacher alike, and that can only come through a conscious effort, and we are speaking of effort, and that has to be productive and creative: it must produce something that has a value because it has been created by the students' work and effort. That's what task pedagogy and project pedagogy is all about. We could use a simple image: if you want to sit, just make a chair for yourself with your own hands and your own work. And buying a ready-made one in some supermarket is just a vanity: you will sit on it for sure but you will have no pride in it because you did not make it. If you want to be proud of your life, make it worth being proud of it and stop accusing people or society of making your life unbearable and catastrophic. Finally the school proposes a project that is preparing the students for the 21st century, for the future. It is not based on making the students acquire an established knowledge about the past or the present but building a knowledge about the future and first of all by having the tools of the future at their disposals, computers and Information Technology. When they are plugged onto the communication of this immense globalized network they can envisage conquering the future. And there we find the first two ideas again. To conquer the future you must be proud of your roots and even your past, no matter what it has been. Proud does not mean be uncritical, but proud means assume it all and make it the yeast of the future. And then you have to consider the future as a project, both personal and collective, and a project requires an effort, hard work and a lot of self pride and self reliance. This book is showing how such qualities can be built in young people. They have to get rid of all self pity they may have felt before. Self pity is the poison of any attempt at improving your lot. That is true all over the world and that is true particularly in the countries where a majority of people are from one culture and a minority, or minorities, are from another culture, or other cultures. This situation is universal and the coming decades will increase that problematic because people are going to move from one country to the next more than ever for professional, commercial, educational or cultural reasons. And do not dream of genetically mixing these cultures to produce a mixed-blood culture. People are supposed to assume their biculturalism, bilingualism if not multiculturalism and multilingualism in a society that encourages it. It is not by building some kind of lingua franca among cultures that we will improve the situation and confront the challenge. It is by accepting what others are and what we are entirely and by acquiring the cultures of our neighbors that we will be up to the globalized world of tomorrow. The future is not in Mickey Mouse of all but it is in multicultural education and multicultural life for all.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

I stumbled upon this work by accident and love it!!! It is a must have for any collector of Sacred Music or Vodou Practicioner!!! The book is interesting and informative and the music is sensational!